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Untitled (Standing Woman)
Accession # 2010.2
Artist Sargent Claude Johnson
Title Untitled (Standing Woman)
Date ca. 1933-1935
Medium Terracotta, paint, surface coating
Dimensions Overall: 14 1/4 x 4 x 3 1/2 in. (36.2 x 10.2 x 8.9 cm)
Credit Line Gift of the Estate of Emil Fuchs and Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Steinhauer, by exchange, Robert B. Woodward Memorial Fund, and Mary Smith Dorward Fund
Location American Identities: Modern Life

Curatorial Remarks: This terracotta figure of a woman was created by the San Francisco–based artist Sargent Claude Johnson in the 1930s, as Black artists derived inspiration from the New Negro Movement and its leader Alain Locke, whose encouragement of art that celebrated contemporary Black life and African ancestral traditions led Johnson to refer to African sculpture in the mask-like form of the face seen here. Employing a modernist reduction of form in the simplified, cylindrical body, Johnson created work that exudes a quiet gravity and power, within a practice he could only pursue outside his various jobs until he received W.P.A. Federal Art Project commissions in 1937 and 1938.